My point of this subthread is that royalties, dividends, equity, whatever are all just mechanisms to reward based on upside in a collective endeavor, and can be negotiated as a compensation component. If you're functioning within capitalism, the idea that you keep getting paid for something you're not actively working on shouldn't be foreign. Look no further than your index funds, whether growth or income producing securities. What makes royalties unpalatable with these concepts in mind? Not much different than VTI, SCHD, etc (public securities, growth and income producing respectively, if you're unfamiliar). You have acquired an asset in some manner (either paying for it with fiat or with your time), and you are holding it for future economic benefit.

For example: I receive dividends from a friend's vending machine business I invested in to help them rapidly scale up (including me lugging vending machines to locations, setting up infra to monitor remotely and accept payments, etc). That is no different than equity in a SaaS product or someone's contributions to a major motion picture.

I agree there is a lot of nuance (ie all of your points), but the conversation should be "how is ownership valued and distributed? is it reasonable and equitable?"